A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not. So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long. The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like. So I picked 11 of them to post about.

I had never heard of Goblin, an Italian prog rock band. They are primarily known for their soundtrack work.

This song is from the 1977 Italian supernatural horror film Suspiria directed by Dario Argento, which served as the inspiration for the 2018 film Suspiria, directed by Luca Guadagnino.

The song starts out quietly with bells and a twinkling piano–signalling either a children’s song or a demonic score. The song reveals it full demonic side with some eerily strummed mandolin and then, creepiest of all a whispered voice singing “La La La La La La La” along with the melody.

This continues for about 2 and a half minutes before a spacey synth and a rumbling bass and drum jolt the song forward. There’s more whispered words and some keyboard stabs. This resolves into a fast keyboard version of the initial bells motif.

After two minutes of this the original music returns now with an echoing drum and a much clearer somehow creepier “La La La.”

I have never seen this movie, but if the soundtrack is an indication, it’s must be super creepy.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween. It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

This story isn’t scary. It’s more thought provoking. And, in fact, it has one of the most positive endings in a story that I’ve read in a long time. (more…)